


A Name For War (And An Arm To Match)

by maglor_still_lives, SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Angst, Gen, Somewhat Historically Accurate, Swordfighting, Violence, set during the first Roman invasion of Britain, the character death isn't Maglor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-10-01 19:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maglor_still_lives/pseuds/maglor_still_lives, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: “They all burned, in one way or another. But not me. I got stuck with the ocean, throwing myself around for all eternity. Have you ever been caught in a riptide, Marius?”I shake my head no, unsure where he is going with this line of questioning.“You have to let yourself go. The only way to survive the ocean is to let it have its way with you.”





	A Name For War (And An Arm To Match)

**Author's Note:**

> look at the awesome [art](https://www.deviantart.com/loudlyinnerkingdom/art/Legionnaire-Maglor-810915699) by [maglor_still_lives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maglor_still_lives/pseuds/maglor_still_lives)!!

It is late summer when we arrive; the nights are long and the days are longer. Despite the winter lingering on the horizon, Caesar has ordered an expedition to Briton. We set sail early from Gaul and when the white cliffs emerge from the haze of the sea it’s still only mid-morning. What begins as a faint hazy outline slowly defines itself as hordes of imposing Britons, some on horseback, some on chariot, some on foot, but all staring down threateningly at us. It is a sight to behold, more terrifying than any storm on the sea or on land. Still, I am not afraid. Not here on the ships, where we are safe. 

Word passes down the ranks. We are not landing. Caesar is waiting for the cavalry, and then we will find a suitable place to land. I sigh from relief. I have not fought before, not in a real battle, and I am glad that that particular milestone in a man’s life has been pushed back at least for a few hours.

And those few hours pass _sluggishly_. I watch the sun rise above the mast and begin to sink back down the other side. It moves slowly; it has so much farther to travel during this, the season of annexation and anguish, and like us, it is weary and bogged down by the suffocatingly clammy air. 

It comes almost as a blessing when we are instructed to prepare to move out, though the cavalry has still not joined us here. I do not move from my position even as the call comes down the line to raise anchor. I missed the hurried sessions of basic seamanship training due to a sprained ankle which has since healed stronger than ever, but over the course of those few days in the infirmary an irritable older man taught me different herbs and poultices. I can tie tourniquets but not sailor’s knots; I drop fevered temperatures but not anchor; I raise spirits but not sails. No one has as of yet looked down on me for my ineptitude at sailing, not since Cassius Modius lost his balance climbing the mast and I reset his leg bone while he still lay squealing on the deck, covered in salt water spray and his own blood. 

At the time I was tired and stressed and miserable, but I look back on it now with a sense of fond nostalgia. All of us boys had just been drafted—we were boys then, not yet forged into men by long days of labor and brutal training, constantly being told to keep our guards up, move faster, hit harder—and we did not yet know each other like brothers, still strangers sleeping in the same barracks with little to bind us together other than a common nationality and draft orders. It was that day when we all held our breath in fear for one of our own that we first began to act as one, to let down our barriers and speak to each other frankly, to imagine a future where we fought side by side.

It was also that day when I met Florin Pontilius, the man who was to become my closest friend in the Tenth Legion. He is the _aquilifer_, the eagle-bearer, a man of great status amongst the faceless horde of thousands of legionaries. It is a wonder that he chose me as a friend, and yet I never question it, for fear that I will lose this companionship which I hold most dearly.

“Marius!” 

He calls my name now, shouting for it to be heard over the constant noises of the ship—waves smashing the hull, birds squawking as they fly overhead, men yelling across the deck—and his voice is as confident as his walk as he strides towards me, his legs automatically compensating for the sway of the ship beneath his feet. It is clear that this is not his first campaign and I am overly aware of how shaky I am as I stand to greet him. I grab his arm and clap his back but he does not return my grin.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a man in the sea,” he explains as we move towards the edge of the ship, a group of men gathered there to peer down below. “He doesn’t look like one of ours, but there’s no way to tell if he’s a Briton or a deserter.”

There is no difference in Florin’s mind between the two; both are equally considered the enemy. But as I toss a length of rope over the rail and see the man grab on to it with the desperation of one already half dead, I can’t force myself to feel anything but pity for him.

And then he starts to climb up the side of the ship, even as five burly men as round as barrels help pull him up. The sun must have gotten to me, lying in it all morning as I have, because he has too many joints and not enough bones protruding for how thin he is. Then there is the matter of his movement. It is wholly unlike any beast I have ever seen or heard described, and all I can think is that they must have strange creatures on this isle. The thought briefly crosses my mind that _he_ is that indescribable beast, but it passes as quickly as any other summertime fantasy. He is a man, albeit a nearly drowned one, and I have completely forgotten my previous delusion by the time he is pulled onto the deck and falls into my waiting arms.

I carry him over my shoulder into the cabin. His body is long and thin and weighs as little as a bird’s. Despite its airy nature, there is a hardness to the man. I suspect it would be nigh impossible to break him but I do not doubt that if anything could, it would be the sea, relentless and unthinking as it is. 

He does not sleep. I am not complaining; it is much easier to take care of an awake patient who can tell you how they are feeling or at least show physical reactions to pain if they cannot talk, like the man laying on one of the wooden beds in the cabin. His knees are bent at a perfect square angle with his bare feet resting on the floor. His head is less than a hands-width from the wall, thin hair as black-green as seaweed falling limply onto the threadbare linen sheet.

No one has followed me into the cabin, preoccupied as they are with following Caesar’s orders to find a suitable place to land our twelve thousand men and presumably the cavalry, whenever they deign to grace us with their presence. I complain, though I cannot help but be a little worried at their absence. We cannot take Briton without them but even with my limited knowledge of military strategy, I realize that we cannot wait for the Britons to present a unified defence, separated into independent tribes as they appear to be now. We will likely suffer great losses without the cavalry if we attack now, even though they are split asunder, and it scares me that Caesar might attack without our reinforcements. On some deep level hidden underneath false bravery, I hope that I will be held back from the fighting because of my knowledge of medicine, but that is the precise reason why I must be in the thick of it, fooling death with my bandages and poultices.

It is a dangerous game, fooling death, but I seem to be rather good at it. 

The man from the sea sits up sharply. When I rush over to his side, he grabs my wrist.

“Where am I?” 

“You are with the Tenth Legion,” I tell him. His voice is as deep and guttural as the open ocean. “My name is Marius.”

He lets go of me. “I am Maglor.”

“Can you tell me what you were doing in the sea?” I ask him gently, like he’s a skittish animal separated from the herd. 

“No,” he freezes. “The _Roman_ Tenth Legion?”

“Yes,” I say. I suppose he doesn’t have to explain himself but I am still curious what he was doing. We were anchored too far from the coast for any sane Briton to be swimming out and if he was a Roman deserter he would never have let himself be pulled back aboard one of the ships he was willing to risk life and limb to escape.

“What are the Romans doing here?”

“Reconnaissance, I think. Although Caesar probably has a plan for conquest as well, if fortune favors.”

Maglor nods slowly, considering his options. “What will you do with me, Marius?”

“It isn’t really up to me to decide—”

“Isn’t it?” He looks at me and I swear I could see waves in his eyes. 

“What would you have me do with you?” 

“What you will,” he says casually, but I can still feel the weight of his stare, daring me to make a decision. “I have knowledge of fighting and healing both, of singing and dancing and taking lives as I wish. You saved me, Marius. You pulled me from the sea when I was half drowned, half a man. I will fight for you if you wish it.”

“Do not endanger yourself for me,” I scoff. “Get some rest. Your head is still full of brinewater.”

“Your wish is my command,” he says smiling guilelessly. “Do not worry. I will be in no danger.”

I leave him once he has laid back down and closed his eyes. I doubt he will actually sleep but it is enough that he is resting. Once on deck I run into Florin, his eyes wild with a predatory thrill.

“Look!” he exclaims grinning. “The Britons are following us! There’s going to be a fight today. I can feel it.”

“You _want_ a fight?” I ask incredulously.

“Don’t you?” he laughs. “You have a name for war, Marius, and an arm to match. I cannot wait to watch you wreak havoc in battle.”

“I am a _healer_, Florin. I don’t want to wreak havoc on anyone.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong, my friend! I have seen you practice with the blade and I know that the Britons should be very, very afraid of you,” he smiles again and grasps my arm. “Come, let’s get our armor.”

Down below, the men are throwing around banter as we all prepare for landing. Word is that the cavalry has still not arrived but that we are making battle with the Britons anyways. I shift anxiously from foot to foot as Florin knots the ties up my spine. He finishes and turns around for me to do the same but my fingers are shaking and I know that he is not as secure as he could be—as he should be.

“It will be fine,” he murmurs as I retie the last knot for the third time.

“It isn’t tight enough.”

“I will be fine,” he turns around and holds my shoulders. “_We_ will be fine.”

I breath in and out, held in place by his steady hands pushing down on my armored shoulders. It is a comforting weight. We will be fine.

And then we are about to jump down into the ocean to wade to shore—the Britons are on the beach, they are running back and forth throwing javelins—Cassius Modius has already been hit by one in the thigh—but there is nothing I can do to help him this time, separated as we are by hordes of blood-thirsty legionnaires, all clamoring for a fight—the Britons will not oblige them in this—they are goading us, they know we will not risk moving on foot through the salty tempest of the ocean, a mercurial master who cares not for the affairs of mortal men. 

It is a hopeless standstill.

But then—look! There is Florin: brave, courageous Florin who will never run from a fight, who has never known doubt, who does not fear death nor Fate but looks them in the face and laughs. Look at him closely and remember this moment, that there is Florin who jumps into the sea, holding the eagle high, and he calls out in a clear brassy voice:

“Leap, fellow soldiers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy! I, for my part, will perform my duty to the republic and to my general!”

I will never forget those words. They stand above the lion head of his helmet; they stand above the solitary man and his standard looking back at the rest of us, all cowards, with purpose in his stance and heaviness in his heart; they stand above the men who jumped in after him yelling battle cries “for Rome, for Rome!”; they stand above the clash of armor and spray of salt water and sting of spears and javelins flying through the air; they stand above the battle, above the isle, above the sea, above it all.

But looking above it all there is only random movement; down on the ground there is only random violence. I carry my gladius, my strokes weighty as my vision blurs. It is the water in my eyes, the salt in my wounds. The sea is red and the air is iron. Even as I stop seeing the faces of the men I cut down, my hearing will not fail. I know it is cold and callous but my only wish is to not hear each individual cry for help from his brothers, Caesar, the gods, anyone. I know these men and I hear them fall, bodies taken by the sea. Their blood mixes with that of the fallen Britons. In a few weeks time, once the flesh been eaten away by the invisible jaws of the sea, no one will be able to tell any of them apart. 

They will all be bones, Romans and Britons alike. 

I look down where their faces should be but all I see are skulls. My organs twist inside out and I tear my gaze away to see if the sky will bring comfort but I forget which way is up and which way is down and so I spin around wildly until I hear—my cursed hearing, that I can still hear—Florin’s voice once more. 

There are no words. He lets out a grating howl, a death lament. I start running towards him, my feet catching on the sand and the waves and the bodies of the dead and dying filling my path towards him. I stumble but keep going, fueled by rage, Mars inhabiting my body for a few brief glorious moments. Fury fills my veins and I let out a cry as I charge through the battle. The bodies in front of me move and for an instant I can see him. Florin meets my eyes and whispers a farewell as a man stabs him in the back with a spear. I cannot see too well from here but still the image is all too clear of the metal tip sliding in between the plates of his armor, loose from his crazy fighting dance—loose from my own unsteady hands.

Those same hands—how I wish I could cut them off! and reverse the damage they have done—open in defeat and my gladius slips out of my numb fingers. I fall to my knees not caring who I land on. It is useless. The eagle has fallen.

Why, then, are they all still fighting?

I look around, my sight restored after that horribly lucid image of Florin. His visage is still burned into my retinas and I fear and I hope that I will never lose it. 

The fighting slows then stops completely. Around me I see only the red of the Roman army. Have we won? It feels like a hollow victory, if that is what it is. But then I turn towards the beach and I realize that we have not won. The Britons have returned to the sand where they can regroup and rejoin their horses and javelin-throwers. They are waiting for us—to charge or flee, they will be fine with either outcome—and I realize that they have won victory over us. Disorganized and tired and hopeless as we are, we cannot take on the newly confident Brits. 

I look back—I will admit it, though I am not proud—to the ships. There is safety on board, out of range of their javelins. I think of home and I long for it, the simplistic nature of childhood that I thought I had left behind forever. If any other man had started to retreat, I know that I would have as well, leaving behind the others in my own self defence. No one runs, but they do start to turn around. Slowly at first, but then in droves, they turn around. We look to the ships out of fear and out of wonder and our prayers are answered. 

A man is walking through the ocean towards us. He is tall and thin and looks like a mirage until he raises a sword and shield. The sun glints off of his armor and helmet as he moves through the sea leaving a trail of ripples in his wake. He glides through a corridor that has appeared for him with his head held high. The confidence he inspires builds up momentum, a rush of water held back by a dam, growing more and more dangerous by the second. 

With a start I recognize him; it is Maglor come through the sea against all odds to reach Florin’s body. It is kneeling, his blood-drained white hand still wrapped around the _aquila_ standard. He is dutiful even in death. Maglor stops fully and turns in profile, his head downturned and his whole body a salute to Florin and all of the fallen. The waves are still crashing as we hold our collective breath, reunited as one under Maglor’s spell. 

“Rest now,” he says to Florin, his voice taking on a mythical quality. He wraps his own long hand around the standard and Florin’s body falls down under the waves, finally relieved of his burden. Maglor raises the standard. He speaks softly but we all listen. The Briton army listens as well, I think. How could they not be compelled by this man who speaks with the power of the sea?

“I do not know you,” he says still looking at the spot where Florin fell. “I do not know any of you and you do not know me. But I know men and I know death and I know what it is like to sacrifice one’s self completely to a cause. And so I will fight for you today. I will fight for _him_.”

“For him,” someone says and I am shocked when it is my own voice that breaks the silence.

“For him,” the others echo. 

And with that solemn statement we follow Maglor onto the beach. My feet finally feel the British isle proper beneath them and it feeds them energy as I maim and dismember and kill all in the name of Florin. I know I have his same feral look in my eyes and incorrigible smirk on my face. I have a name for war and an arm to match and I am unstoppable as we fight off the Britons. They begin to turn tail and run and I would have chased them until the ends of the earth were it not for Maglor, who lays a hand on my arm. 

“Stop now,” he says. “They know they are defeated. There is no more fighting to be done today. Go. Look to those that are hurt.”

“Maglor,” I say, trying it out. His name falls off my tongue for the first time like a boulder. It is not quite Roman, not quite similar to any other culture I have heard of, as indescribable and foreign as the man himself.

I repeat it: _Maglor_, and I turn and throw my arms around his narrow body. It is hard and lean and I hold onto him like I am the one who barely escaped drowning.

I still feel like holding onto him hours later as I am still searching the beach for anyone left alive. Most of the time all I can administer is a comforting touch and words of reassurement. They are false, of course, but any momentary relief I can give is worth it. Occasionally I clean and wrap wounds, or make splints out of fallen spears and torn tunics, but these are few and far in between. Most often my work is covering eyes and holding hands as they go limp.

Finally the world has gone completely dark save for the fires of our hastily made camp and I leave the battlefield for the questionable comfort of my bedroll. All I want is to lay down and close my eyes and shut out the reality of today but Maglor is waiting for me. 

“Here,” he says, tossing me my pack. “Come. I want to talk to you.”

I grab it and scramble to keep up. He doesn’t look like a man fresh out of a bloodbath; his strides are long and quick and show no signs of fatigue.

“What is it?” I ask, trying to disguise my search for breath as we finally reach the location of his choosing, a flat spot of land far enough apart from the others that there is no chance of them overhearing us. My words are slightly labored but he doesn’t seem to notice and if he does, he doesn’t pass any noticeable judgement as he begins to pitch the tent.

“Why do you fight?”

“What?” It is not the question I am expecting. “I was drafted into the army, just like almost everyone else here. Why do you ask?”

“But you would not fight just because a faraway emperor asked you to.”

“Well, why not? It is my duty to the empire to serve my time.”

“So it is for duty!”

“I suppose so. What’s the point of this? If anything, I’d like to know why you fought today. I thought I told you to rest.”

“You told me not to endanger myself and I didn’t. There was no possibility that I could come to harm. Still, you must choose your words wisely, Marius. It worked out well today but in the future you cannot be so reckless with your commands.”

“Or what? Maglor, you ask all of these cryptic questions and give me advice that makes no sense. My best friend just _died_, Maglor. Florin is dead and gone and it’s my fault, somewhat, and I’d like some time. Or at least some answers from you. Who are you?”

“I told you,” he says, looking disappointed in me though I know not why. “I am Maglor. Is that not enough for you?”

“No!” I shout, tears welling in my eyes from exhaustion and grief and the sharp wind tearing across the world. “Of course it’s not enough! I know nothing about you except that you survived in the open ocean and convinced two legions of men to fight a seemingly impossible battle. You’re an expert swordsman and you recovered from drowning within a few hours. You don’t _move_ like any ordinary man and I can’t help but be a little suspicious of that.”

Maglor frowns. He doesn’t look like an ordinary man either, not with that long face, his irises nearly invisible with how dark they are and his bone structure protruding in all the wrong places. The overall effect is not… unpleasant to look at, exactly, but it is off-putting. 

“Do not worry, friend,” he says dismissively. When did he start to refer to me as _friend_? And why? He is constantly evolving, this Maglor, and I continue to ponder his many mysteries as he keeps talking. “I am a bard and when I have no great drama to sing about, I make some.”

I stare at him blankly, confused by the turn in conversation.

“I knew someone once,” he says, transported back to a time and place that I cannot follow him. “I knew someone who thought that nothing ever changed: that we were acting out the same stories over and over again in some cruel play for the gods’ amusement.”

“What happened to them?” I ask softly, my frustrations momentarily forgotten by this unprecedented look into Maglor’s past. 

“He threw himself into a volcano.”

I jolt upright.

“Runs in our family. Our _dearly_ departed father burned our youngest brother, then he burned himself.” Maglor laughs bitterly. “They all burned in one way or another. But not me. I got stuck with the ocean, throwing myself around for all eternity. Have you ever been caught in a riptide, Marius?”

I shake my head no, unsure where he is going with this line of questioning.

“You have to let yourself go. The only way to survive the ocean is to let it have its way with you.” 

He stops abruptly. There is a story there, one that he is not telling. I think about asking before I realize that he has just drawn a line I will not cross. Maglor does not want to tell me and when it comes down to it, I do not want to know.

We are silent for more than just the one moment. 

“You should get some sleep,” I say finally. 

“Don’t need it.”

“Maglor.” 

It’s a plea for normalcy, and he sighs. 

“Fine.”

“Thank you.” I shouldn’t have to thank him for something so basic but I need something to hold on to. It should have been Florin setting up this tent, Florin describing in colorful language today’s battle, Florin stopping me from losing myself to the terror and panic of seeing men dying all around me. 

Florin is dead.

All I have is a strange man and a strange land and I feel as though I have never truly known what it is to be homesick until this moment. We lay down in the small tent and though my body is tired, my mind is caught awake puzzling out the day’s events. Maglor is as awake as I am; the sound of his unchanging breath fills the tent.

“Why do _you_ fight?”

“I told you,” he mutters. “I’m a bard. It gives me something to sing about.”

“Will you sing about Florin?” I’m pushing him but I don’t care.

“Go to sleep, Marius,” he says and despite my best efforts, the day’s exhaustion is setting in and my eyes are pulled shut.

The dawn _breaks_, tearing a hole in the sky. I do not want to face the light. I am hurting all over in every way and I think that I might shatter when struck by the raw energy of the sun. But I don’t. The sun rises three more times after that, each slightly more bearable than the last, until the monotony is finally broken by a sudden interruption. 

I am in the medicine tent where I have been tending to the wounded for the past four days. One of the Laetilius twins runs in to get me. 

“Marius!” he cries. “Come quickly! It’s your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Tall fellow? Dark hair? Been running sword fighting drills for the past four days while refusing to talk to anyone?”

“Oh,” I realize. “It’s Maglor.”

“Sure,” he says, shrugging. I’ve never been able to tell the difference between the Laetilius brothers but I think one of them is slightly taller. “Anyways, he’s left camp. Went all the way down to the beach. Some of us were talking and we think you should go check on him.”

Whichever twin this is, he sounds worried and so I find myself agreeing to leave the wounded for now. No one is in dire need of care and there are several others equipped to handle any emergencies. I leave them all behind and walk down to the sea, pushing any and all thoughts about what else has happened on that beach out of my head, focusing instead on the air on my arms and the ground beneath my feet. I can hear gulls and waves and the rhythmic chanting of the sea.

The rhythmic chanting of _Maglor_, pleading with the sea.

“Ylmir,” he invokes. “Ylmir, you must listen.”

I approach silently, the sounds of my breath and heartbeat swept away by the salty air. Maglor is on his knees in the surf. Even with his head bowed, he still appears a giant. The white spray only serves to accentuate his dark figure and I wonder what this Ylmir is that Maglor—Maglor the mighty, whom no man can stand against—prostrates his body before the only force that may be as unknowable and unyielding as himself.

“Ylmir, there are innocents. I know you watch. I know you listen. Even now, even after everything, I know you are there. You have always looked after the people of this fair world. You cannot let them die, not here, not like this. They do not deserve it.”

He pauses and raises his head, but it does not seem triumphant or defiant or strong in any way. He seems defeated. 

“I ask you now—I _beg_ you.”

The words do not come easy. His voice is strained and almost swallowed by the pounding of the waves. But even with all of the effort it must take him, I find that I am having the harder time speaking of the two of us. His words fight him, but mine will not come at all. 

“Ylmir,” he cries once more and it sounds like _song_, a fierce keening animalistic in nature. “They will be slaughtered!”

My movement is instinctive; I turn and run. 

It is the other Laetilius brother who finally finds me, bare calves rubbed raw from scrambling through the sand. I think I am bleeding. He tries to ask me what happened, but I do not answer. How can I? What would I tell him? That Maglor—Maglor who fought for us, Maglor who made Florin’s death _mean_ something, Maglor who came from the sea—is now Maglor who prays to the sea? That he senses doom impending and asks a foreign god to intervene? I don’t even know what to think; how could the lesser Laetilius find his way through the fog surrounding Maglor and his intent? 

“Marius,” he says, his words finally breaking through. “The cavalry is here!”

“What?” I understand his individual words but I cannot fully process what they mean all together. He is not speaking about Maglor at all, but a force far greater than any one man.

“Come look! There are ships on the horizon, ships with Roman sails!”

I follow him back to camp, my legs burning from the strain. Up on top of the hastily built watchtower a group of men are passing around a spyglass. It is thrust into my hands and I squint to see through its dirty lens. 

It takes me a moment to realize what I am looking at. The horizon is jagged but a thin band of light outlines masts and sails against the dark sky. 

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. We are not alone here. The cavalry has come and we are not alone!

The thunder crashes almost instantaneously, as does the wind. Lightning shears the sky and its reflection parts the sea. My swallow is caught in my throat. The watchtower sways beneath us and I would be sick if my body were not frozen in time by the resonant booming of the air ripped into shards. I drop the spyglass and vaguely register its cracking on the wooden floor but I am already making my way down the ladder. The earth is not much steadier than the tumbling tower. I root myself into the ground anyways and stand like a stone as I watch the tempest destroy our hopes in a one sided battle illuminated only by the throbbing lightning. 

It is lost before anyone has a chance to react. When word finally comes down the ranks, we learn that the cavalry has been forced back to Gaul. Some of the men groan and as if to throw sea salt into their open wounds, we are told that some of our own ships have been wrecked as well. We are short on food and fortune and Briton is not willing to provide us with either. Repairing the ships is hard work and thankless; for each hole we fix, three others spring up in its place. The Seventh sends out parties to search for food but we can see the dust of the British ambush all the way from camp. Even with reinforcements sent to join them, pickings are meager. The perpetual rain does nothing to raise spirits and we all begin to lose faith in this campaign. Nothing has gone according to plan and there is unease amongst the men.

I cannot remember the last time I saw the sun—or Maglor.

Julius Caesar, ever the relentless general, does not give me time to look for either. He has negotiated with the Britons and there is to be a pitched battle. We are all to fight in it. This time a stranger puts on my armor and I put on his, tugging the straps too tight until he is gasping for breath. We are all on edge. 

We march to the battlefield, joined together as one by our synchronized footsteps. The sound is deafening to me and I wonder what the Britons must think upon hearing our coming. 

Are they afraid?

I think about them: their ragged breaths, their staggered heartbeats, their separated minds and bodies. They must be afraid. They must be _terrified_ of us. Rome has come calling and they cannot possibly hope to resist.

There is talking amongst the men. Calls to fight for home and all that we have left behind. Names are declared, the gods and Caesar and one man even says “Florin,” in a harsh callback to the last time Roman blood was spilled on British soil. I cannot make out more than a few words here and there but the meaning comes through loud and clear: fight. Fight until you win or you die. There are no other options for us.

_Good_, I think when we finally draw our swords. _It’s time for the bastards who killed my best friend to die._

I cannot say that I am surprised to look across the ranks and lock eyes with Maglor. He nods at me, the faint sunlight glinting off of his polished helmet. It makes sense that he is here; why else would he have been training these past couple days? He has been preparing to fight alongside us and despite my misgivings at his prayers to a false god it gladdens me to know that whomever this Ylmir may be, he is looking out for us. 

The Britons let out a cry eerily similar to Maglor’s keening but it is quickly overtaken by the roar of thousands of highly trained Roman soldiers. We run towards them, our bodies gone and replaced by sword and shield. 

_So this is what it is to be a weapon._

I slash and stab and smear my enemies on the ground. This time the fallen do not drag me down with them. I stand triumphant against the tide of barbarians threatening the might of the Roman Empire and I laugh. They may as well try to fight the ocean. A doom lays upon this isle, placed there by Caesar himself. There is no chance of success for them today or ever. Rome has been fated to rule the world and I will gladly play my part in that victory.

The roar quiets but does not go silent. In the still, I observe the battlefield. It is bathed in red: the light slicing through the clouds, the thick fabric of the tunics we all wear, the blood staining the ground so deeply I think it may never be washed out. 

Then: a cloud lingers over the sun and the light is lost. Bronze scintillations flicker in the darkness. The world holds its breath.

The cloud passes. The light returns slowly. A single silhouette is illuminated at first, outlined by the fog. He is tall and proud and stands like a king. I am awestruck. His arm reaches up and removes his helmet, letting long hair escape and flutter weakly in the stagnant air. As the helmet lands on the ground with a fateful thud, he draws a sword. It is sharp and deadly and cuts through the air, though the tension remains. 

“My brothers,” Maglor says. “It is our time to fight.”

I let out my breath in relief right as a spear buries itself deep into my right shoulder. The sound of air leaving my body is the same as the whistle of wood and metal flying. My knees buckle before my mind can process what is happening and I hit the ground hard, kneeling, then slumping over. My left arm raises my shield out of instinct—thank all the gods for that, Maglor’s included—but the impact of several Britons stepping on it still shoots pulses of pain through my entire body. My feeble efforts to rise are useless: there is no point. For some reason, the Britons have rallied again. They will not be defeated so easily and I begin to lose the assurance of immortality that I had just minutes earlier. 

But we have Maglor! He has sworn to fight for us, and I doubt that he has an equal in all the world. I remind myself of that fact over and over again until it is all I am holding on to and it makes my fate easier to consider. There are two options: I could stay here, curled up against the brutal world outside, so that I may yet survive this battle. I fear my shoulder will not heal from this wound but that is a small price to pay for my life. Still, I cannot avoid the possibility that I may die today. Try as I might to convince myself that there is only honor to be gained dying in battle, it galls me that I might die laying down like a scared child. 

So, the second choice: I stretch my legs, first the left, then the right. Gingerly I start to stand, wincing when my weight shifts and the spear still thrust through my shoulder moves with me. My movements are subtler after that but no less painful. I slowly make my way to my feet. No one pays me any heed, perhaps seeing death in my eyes and writing me off as a lost cause. At this point it would take a miracle to heal me from the blood lost to the effort of standing but it would take nothing at all to kill me. Time is already working at that. 

Time is killing all of us, I realize. Neither the Britons nor the Romans have the upper hand in this bloodbath. They look tired, all of them. Something must change or we will all die here in this unforgiving land. 

“Maglor,” I croak. “Maglor, _please_.”

How it is that my words found my target, I still do not know. What is perhaps even more shocking is that my eyes found him as well, one man amongst thousands. 

“Marius!”

He cries my name so tenderly even as he pulls his bloody blade from the body of Cassius Modius, whose thigh wound had not healed enough to be cleared to fight. _He should not have been here_, I mourn. _He should not have died._

_And Maglor should not have been the one to kill him._

The betrayal runs through me like a river of salt water in a wound. It cannot be real. Just like when I was struck by the spear, my body reacts before my mind does. I shy away from him as he takes long strides to meet me. My feet stumble and start to fall, but he catches me and I squirm to escape his grip. 

“Shh,” he croons, his voice sonorous and steady even now. 

“You killed him,” I say in shock. “You killed Cassius Modius.”

“Hold still,” he says, ignoring me. “I cannot save you if you continue to fight me like this.”

“You killed him!” My voice is a lament, wailing above the throbbing of my heart as I bleed out in the arms of a traitor. “You said you would fight _for_ us, not against us. And then you killed him!”

I am inconsolable as he removes my helmet and brushes hair out of my face. His fingers are suspiciously stable for having just taken a life. I tremble under their touch. Despite the hatred burning me from the inside out, I relax slightly. The fight has left me just like everything else.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, his fingers still combing through my sweaty hair. “You’re going to be alright, Marius. You hear me?”

I do, but he seems so far away. He is outlined in silver, like he is holding the light of the stars in this fragile human form. I look up at him and marvel how I ever thought he was human. There is something so _distant_ about him. He must have lived through so much. I cannot imagine what that might be like but looking into his fathomless eyes, I begin to understand at least a little. 

“You’re a Briton,” I say when I finally come back to myself, my body numb. “You were rallying the Britons against us.”

“Yes,” he says, not even trying to deny it. “I am a Briton, of sorts.”

“Then why—”

“The poetry of it all, I suppose. It will make for a good song. You said his name was Florin?”

“Yes,” I breathe, still confused. “So you will sing about him?”

“I doubt _you_ will ever hear it,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “But someone will.”

“Good.”

“May Elbereth watch over you, Marius, _mellon nin_.” 

He leaves then, the silver light tarnishing into bronze before fading completely. 

They call it a miracle when I wake up. I beg them to save their words. What, then, will they call it when they find that my shoulder has knitted itself back together stronger than it was before? I do not know what magic Maglor worked that fateful day but it has held up magnificently. Even now, even after everything, I cannot help but remember him with every movement. 

His helmet sits on a shelf in my house, still gleaming though I have never polished it. I brought it home with me when we retreated and sailed back to Gaul and then finally to home. Despite my insistence that my shoulder did not pain me, I was discharged from the Tenth Legion. I suspect it had something to do with my connection to Maglor but the official records claim medical reasons. I do not challenge this; retirement suits me. I have seen too much of war and not enough of the world. Ships are always seeking doctors and I have had plenty of time to study the art of fooling death. Perhaps I will even return to Briton one day and meet the tall man with ocean eyes walking the shore and call him friend as we recount the past. 

Then again, perhaps I have had enough of the sea.


End file.
